Kentucky Derby Marathon Recap
After months of planning with us girls getting all excited the day was finally here! Michelle had these fabulous shirts made with horses on them that said, "Talk Derby to me". 😍 Nine of us would be staying together at the same hotel between 2 rooms. It was shaping up for a wonderful weekend! All my long runs after the Tokyo marathon where I was so sick throwing up the 2nd half of the race, were great. I was feeling strong and FINALLY starting to feel like my old self since all the Kidney stone issues, etc. I was pumped! and then BAM... 2 weeks prior to race day, my hip decided to start bothering me. Matter of fact on our last taper run (10 miles), I quit after 5 miles. The pain was so bad. I decided it was time to rest. So I took the whole week off and rested my hip. I did lots of yoga, stretching and PT hip exercises every day.
When we left on Friday heading to KY, I was not hurting. I was so happy. I was like YES! maybe I'm going to have a comeback after 2 bad experiences with recent marathons. We arrived in KY around lunch, got checked in our hotel. We stayed at The Galt Hotel. A famous downtown hotel where lots of jockeys and people stay for the official Kentucky horse race! It was a very nice hotel with 5 restaurants. We grabbed an amazing lunch at "the Old Spaghetti Factory" and headed to get our race bibs. I was still feeling good and so hopeful! We were all in bed early due to our VERY early flight to KY earlier that morning... got up at 2am to fly out at 6am. 😁 We a sucker for an early fight. 😂
Got up race morning feeling good. Drank my 1/2 cup of coffee, ate my PB and banana and even had a pop tart. I was feeling good. 😀 Weather was PERFECT! It was cool, overcast and slightly windy! Luckily the start line was right down from our hotel, so we didn't have far to go. We grabbed a few pictures and got in our corral. It was RACE time. Mile one went ok... I was feeling good... then BAM on mile 2 the hip pain came back and as I got into mile 3-4 the pain was so bad I could barely stand my foot each time it hit the pavement, so I stopped and started walking. Of course, the girls turned around and was like .. what's wrong! Candy was like... is it your kidney. another stone??? you ok??? I was like you girls go on! Run your race. I'm out of the marathon. NO way I can do 26.2 miles with this pain! So, They went on and I walked a good bit and would try to jog off and on. Penny texted me and asked me if I would consider backing down to the half marathon. I was like.. YES! Apparently, she didn't hear me when I told Candy that I would just try to get through the half... 😕
So here I am ... walking... trying to jog and SUFFERING! Around mile 8-9 when we were going in Churchill Downs! Yep, we got to run there! So amazing. I was hurting so bad that I was considering calling an uber. A young girl was walking with her mom and hollered at me.... Good Job Marathon... see my bib said "marathon" and I guess they were trying to pump me up when they saw me struggling... I hollered back that I was not going to do the marathon... that I didn't even think I could finish the half. They came towards me and said you have a 4 hour time limit on the half. You can do it. Just keep moving. So that's what I did. I finally finished at like 3:14:35! 3 hours and 14 minutes for a half! But hey... I FINISHED! AND UNDER THE 4 HOUR TIME LIMIT. 😁😂😁
I was so cold! When you walk your body does not warm up like running and the sun never came out and it stayed very cool! It truly was awesome weather for a marathon! My fingers were so cold that I could barely text my husband to let him know I as ok. I went back to the hotel to get shower and take pain meds. I didn't hang around to wait on my friends to finish the marathon and I was SAD about that. I just couldn't. Luckily, I had a nerve pain pill and a muscle relaxer that I took and hopped in the bed. I missed all the finish photos with my girls. 😓 When they arrived back in the hotel, they told me there were so big hills later in the race, so I guess I'm glad I missed that. 😋 I was so very proud of them! Penny & Miss Ann had a sub 5 marathon! We sat around that evening after supper in the big lounge area at the hotel that had a Starbucks and a bar in it and laughed and talked. It was so nice just chilling with my girlfriends.
I'm not going to lie. I was so upset I wanted to cry. I was mad, disappointed and just plain furious. Why ME is all I wanted to say. And then I'd remind myself... it's not MY time, but GOD's time and it just wasn't meant to be for me to do the marathon. I don't know why I've now had 3 marathons that turned disastrous for me. It's heartbreaking as much as I train and work at it. Maybe God is trying to tell me something...... or maybe I've done too much over the last couple of years.... 6 marathons in 2022, 5 marathons in 2023, and 4 marathons in 2024! Maybe it's time for a break... which is WHAT I PLANNED this year in 2025! I was only going to do 2 marathons and a half marathon at the most. Then Penny mentioned WA and I signed up for that so I had 3 marathons on 1 half on tap for 2025. Guess I didn't slow down soon enough???? 😕
I have now seen the doctor and they have me an MRI ordered for next week on my lower back and my right hip so we can figure out what is going on. I've had bursitis in this right hip before that gave me fits, but this pain is so much worse. So we shall see. I'm not handling this waiting, but next week was their first opening for MRI appointment.
So that's a wrap on my trip to Kentucky! I would recommend this race to others. It was FUN traveling with my girls. Great town! Looking forward to watching the horse race on TV this weekend! I would love to one day go to the actual horse race there at Churchill Downs! ... For what they call the 2 minutes the earth stands still.. ha 😁
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